Consumers Energy disputes new report that says its coal-fired plants are harming waterways

JACKSON, MI – Consumers Energy officials dispute a new report that says five of the company’s coal-fired power plants have discharged ash that harm waterways.

The new report, a collaboration between Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project and four other organizations, finds that coal plants have become the largest source of toxic water pollution in the country due to a lack of effective pollution limits.

The groups surveyed 386 coal plants across the country and identified 274 that discharged either coal ash or wastewater.

The following are the Consumers Energy coal-fired plants listed in the report: B.C. Cobb in Muskegon County; Dan E. Kern in Bay County; J.C. Weadock in Bay County; J.H. Campbell in Ottawa County; and J.R. Whiting in Monroe County. The report listed four of these plants as having expired Clean Water Act permits.

The groups believe there is a lack of federal standards that limit toxic pollution from coal plants. Existing standards that apply to coal plant wastewater were established in 1982 and do not cover most of the worst pollutants, according to the report.

Linda Hilbert, manager of environmental services for Consumers Energy, said Michigan regulates coal ash as a non-hazardous waste. She said the company is in compliance with environmental regulations and that the company takes this compliance seriously.

She said the company has filed applications to renew permits, but the state has a backlog and it is taking longer to issue those permits.

Currently, the company plans to invest $175 million in clean water initiatives to meet EPA regulations. That is a conservative figure, Hilbert said.

“We have permits that we’re working on, and we’re still required to do all the monitoring and testing under these permits,” said Gary Dawson, director of environmental policy, land and water management at Consumers Energy. “We’re not discharging ash to the water in any sort of appreciable quantities.”

Twenty facilities in Michigan were reviewed for the report, which includes information based on company self-reported data that was obtained through U.S. Environmental Protection Agency websites and Freedom of Information Act requests.

“Affordable wastewater treatment technologies exist to eliminate toxic discharges and are already in use at some plants,” Eric Schaeffer, executive director of Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement. “It is time to hold the coal industry accountable for cleaning up this pollution. Americans deserve - and the law demands - commonsense safeguards that protect downstream communities and our watersheds from dangerous heavy metals.”